AFP exposes candidate – candidate attacks
Links updated 1/20/2016 @4:23PM
State Representative Jana Della Rosa (R) is running for reelection in House District 90 against two Republican opponents: Jana K. Starr and Randy Alexander.
It is interesting to see how Representative Jana Della Rosa has attacked Americans for Prosperity (AFP) after AFP exposed her support for Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion. Her attacks on AFP are especially interesting since AFP supports conservative candidates.
Their feud is not being reviewed here because it is merely interesting. Their feud is being fact checked because of apparent deceptions in her mailers.
Diversion – Impugn the character of the messenger
- In her first attack mailer she claimed AFP “will twist facts and distort the truth”. The AFP mailer she was responding to correctly identified Representative Della Rosa as voting to continue Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion in Arkansas. (SB96 of 2015). AFP did not twist facts or distort truth.
- In her second attack mailer she equated AFP to “Puppet-Masters” saying “The Puppet-Masters Want You Kept in the Dark.” and also warned “Special interest groups will continue their attacks…”
Special interest groups? Puppet-Masters? Have special interest groups made campaign donations to Representative Jana Della Rosa? Of course they have and of course it includes lobbyists, PAC’s etc.
We see no need to do a who’s who of her donors. However, we will note Representative Della Rosa’s list of donors (reported since 7/6/2015) includes donations from twenty-five Political Action Committees (PACs), a long list of trial lawyers, and a host of fellow politicians.[i] We didn’t bother to go any farther back.
“Special interest groups will continue their attacks…” The mailer tries to give voters the impression she is taking on special interest groups, her donor list shoots down that idea.
“The Puppet-Masters Want You Kept in the Dark.“ Did she mean hers or was she referring to AFP.
Tortured words
It appears she has gotten some bad advice on using “tortured words” and “red herrings” meant to confuse voters.
Representative Jana Della Rosa mailers tried to camouflage her vote to help continue Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion by using a quote from Governor Asa Hutchinson: “Representative Della Rosa voted for my plan to END the Private Option and to create a task force to reform our entire Medicaid program.” What the Governor said is correct if he means that she voted with him to stop using the title “Private Option,” but her campaign has used the words in a deceptive way.
Voters don’t cares whether the use of the title “Private Option” ENDS when the Governor’s proposal is to continue Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion under a new title “Arkansas Works.”
The first duty of the task force she voted for was to continue coverage of the Obamacare Medicaid Expansion population, and the only way to do that was to continue Obamacare Medicaid Expansion in some form.
The deceptive use of the Governor’s statement may be enough to fool voters, but it does not refute what AFP asserted – Representative Della Rosa supported continuation of Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion.
The Red Herring
Her mailer also insinuated that the problem is “dark money” and tried to paint AFP as being against her because of her proposal to make candidates file campaign reports electronically, in order to have a searchable data base. First, whoever put her ad together either doesn’t understand that her proposal had nothing to do with stopping dark money or doesn’t care that it has nothing to do with it. Her proposal on campaign reports wouldn’t have required any more information to be filed. It merely would have required candidates to file the same information they now file but in electronic format. The purpose of electronic filing would be to make it easier to review candidate reports, and CFA thinks this is a good idea.
Again her proposal had nothing to do with what she obviously is wanting the voter to believe.
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While Conduit for Action disagrees with Representative Della Rosa on her use of deceptive attack mailers and her vote supporting Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion, the idea of requiring candidate campaign reports to be filed electronically should be supported.
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An interesting note. While most of Representative Della Rosa’s campaign reports are for the Republican Primary Election, her report filed 01/01/2016 is for the General Election, but the winner of the Republican Primary will not have a General Election opponent. What’s up with the PAC contributions for the General Election?
[i] 2016 Campaign reports by Representative Jana Della Rosa include:
| Year | Filing Date | Filing Type | Report |
| 2016 | 01/01/2016 | General | |
| 2016 | 01/01/2016 | Primary | |
| 2016 | 12/31/2015 | Primary | |
| 2016 | 12/10/2015 | Primary | |
| 2016 | 11/01/2015 | Primary | |
| 2016 | 10/06/2015 | Primary | |
| 2016 | 07/06/2015 | Primary |
Downloaded from Secretary of State website